Saturday, February 26, 2011

For those that listened to west coast gangsta rap in the earlt 90's there is a big possibility you heard Threat rhyme on someones track?

The fact that i chose him to be my first unsung hero is down to the fact that i can hardly find a thing about the dude on the net anywhere??? its not surprising but at the same time its a shame as this was a solid as hell album...okay it was exactly like all other west coast album out there.....guns, bitches and low riders? But how this album never shipped major units is beyond me?

Threat was sort of an un-official member ife Ice cubes lench mob andguest rapped on some all time west coast hip hop classics. None better than Ice Cubes "color blind" which featured a who's who of west coast rappers on the album "death certifidate"

He had a good voice and his rhymes were very well thought out and his beats were pretty sweet for the time. other collabs included the great track " Peep game" with 2pac and " A hoe b4 the homie" on King Tee's Trifflin album.

This aint a classic album like "Straight outta compton" but this is a great addition to anyones cd collection and chances are...you probably get it cheap somewhere too. be sure to check it out.

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So after the re-up i come with a little more info on threat. Ive just listened to this album again and it still amazes me how he didnt make a bigger name for himself? such a good dude with serious skills?

so anyways i have since found out that threat was a member of a group called " Black Menace " ive not checked out their stuff yet but am definitely gonna delve into it.

i found a link available for some of their stuff over on Deadly Grounds Website
I'm gonna get this album and see if i can track down the oither stuff so keep your eyes open for some stuff soon :)

Thursday, February 24, 2011

so regarding RE-UPS im gonna be updating all my dead links and putting them up over next few days so bare with me kids, all the stuff will be available, had a lot of requests for the deadly threat LP and the preacher earl 12" (which i have to rip again) ....you have taste!

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Artifacts were a group coming out of New Jersey made up of a crew of real B boys known as El Da Sensei, Tame One and DJ Kaos and they were amoung the rare breed of hip hop artists that carried on with the original origins of the art and were quite well known supporters of the graffiti scene.

I was lucky enough to hear about Artifacts about a year before they kinda blew up. I had a mate back in the days that used to record shop with me and he had heard rumblings about an artist that was cousins or some shit like that with Redman??? not sure if that is right but he came across a 12" by underground beat makers "The Nubian Crackers" the track was called Do You Wanna Hear It? and it had various different versions on the 12"....mostly just beats and stuff but there was one version which featured the unknowns Artifacts!

Now not a lot of people copped this back in the day and you'd have to be a pretty die hard fan to even know this exsists, but from the moment i heard it i was huge fan. This track is possibly one of the most slept on tracks in hip hop and is a must to anyone that loves there hard beats....

So it took a little while for artifacts to come out with some solo work but i can remember reading about them in source magazine, there was a kinda buzz about them and soon enough they came with the goods.....

Wrong Side Of The Tracks was the first 12" to hit the stores and it came with the excellent Bside Flexi With Da Tech :) there wasnt any remixes sadly but from what i remember the 12" came out before the album so it was just nice to be able to get a fix of the beat heavy style they came with.

The album is a pretty impressive debut and is full of quality hard head bop beats and smooth flows that make it a must have to any collection. The album got some pretty decnt reviews and then came one of them 12" that has one of them tracks/remixes that just blew up.........

The remix track was just one of those smooth vibed tracks that included guest vocals from Busta Rhymes and was just an instant classic. I loved this 12" so much and is probably one of my most played tracks ever.

The album on the whole was full of gems and its very hard to pick a stand out track as they all kind of have their own identity on the album﻿, but a personal fave of mine was the track Dynamite Soul so i was quite chuffed when it came to be released as a single....................

This 12" came with a phat remix and a new track not on the album "Who I Am". The remix was pretty much a new song on its own with an amazing beat and new lyrics ples the added guest vocals from Mad Skillz (he kinda sounds like Big L just not as nice lol)

The new track , who i am, kinda has a sound like it was produced by pete rock but was actually produced by EZ LPEE, not someone i kow a whole lot about but the beat is nice and was a nice little bonus to any artifacts fans out there.

So all in all a pretty impressive burst onto the scene and with great hopes for the Artifacts, but it would be another 3 years before they came with a 2nd album.........

Thats Them was the 2nd coming from the crew and it seemed to me that the album didnt get the same praise as the first and is quite strange to me as its a pretty solid album? i think with the years going by and hip hop more interested in wars between east/west coasts and the drama that surrounded pac and biggie i think a lot of heads kinda drifted off from hip hop, i for one am guilty of that. I dont know whether it was a case of me growing up and having a job and a girl or just a lack of quality around at the time to keep me interested? Occasionly i would pick up stuff but i was far from the gold hunter that i was so i think i just didnt put my heart into it as much. God bless the internet hey! so now i get the chance to go back and re live my youth now i'm an old fossil. have to say i appreciate hip hop a lot more nowadays than i did back then and when i listen back to groups like Artifacts i wonder to myself why i fell off so much.......I'm blaming the girl :) but its well worth checking this album if you dont own it (why?)

The group went their seperate ways after the album and singles releases, the only 12" i managed to buy from this was The Ultimate...................

I had actualy stopped buying as many 12"s as i had used to so it was quite rare for me to part with cash for nothing less than albums. there seemed to be a lack of remixes floating around on singles but as soon as i saw Showbiz did the remix for this 12" i had to grab it. The remix was a much harder version obviously and well worth the download.

I managed to kop the solo releases from the crew fairly recently and will throw them up at some point but i hope you enjoy if you never heard them before.......AND DO NOT SLEEP ON THE NUBIAN CRACKERS TRACK!!! as ﻿El Da Sensei says on Flexi.......

Friday, January 28, 2011

So the year was 1991, N.W.A had just released their 2nd album and took a few swipes at former band member ice cube and went on with their biz of being the worlds most dangerous group.......... then out of nowhere came the diss of all disses, FUCK COMPTON blew up and the war between east and west coasts was ignited. Tim dog didn't fuck around making subliminal diss tracks he just went all out war on Compton and named many names but most notoriously Dr Dre and DJ Quik. I'm not gonna delve too much into it as I'll let you listen to the tracks and make your own mind up.

At the time i remember people being like "whoooooa no he didn't just say that?" to this day i think there was a little bit of jealousy coming thru from dog and if you listen to the album nowadays it doesn't really sound like it dated well. there are tracks that still sound dope as hell but mainly for sentimental reasons and less for the actual quality of the album. Don't get me wrong this is a classic and a must have but lyrically it ain't the best

Its a shame in a way as Tim definitely has some talent and sounds hard as hell but to me it just doesn't really stand out anymore.

So then the aftermath came and everyone from MC eiht of C.M.W. to Quik retaliated with several diss tracks aimed at Tim dog and the south Bronx. to my knowledge nothing ever blew up into a fight situation but there is a shout out for 2pac strangely enough on his second album for apparently squashing a situation that happened in San Fran??? will we ever know?

there was a year with tracks being made thrashing back some of Tim dogs comments back down his throat, my opinion is that the west coast won the battle. C.M.W's "who's fucking who?" from the music to drive by album was possibly one of the best retaliation tracks ever and DJ Quik also threw some solid shit back too.

However everything from the N.W.A camp stayed pretty quiet and Dre and Eazy didn't really get involved in the situation till after Tim's 2nd album dropped.

This album in my opinion was a much better effort from Tim dog as just a hip hop album and not a collection of personal gripes. i quite enjoyed this album but it didn't really do very well as sales were quite low? The beats were better the rhyming was better so its hard to understand why it didn't do very well?

Around the same time Dre's album was picking up more and more momentum and well on its way to becoming a solid gold classic in hip hop law! Dre had finally answered Tim dog back with a few subliminals and some straight out disses via his young apprentice Snoop Dog. Eazy also got in on the act with his solo releases and kokane had a lot to say about Tim.

Which brings us on to what i feel was an act of desperation from Tim when he released "bitch with a perm"

So as you can see i am back now so feel free to request any re-ups or or requests for shit? i got a stack of cd's and a pile of wax so if you after any old stuff/remixes give me a shout and i'll see what i can do for you. can rip stuff how you like too so feel free to be cheeky.......

SO this is one of them albums that just about everybody heard the single (deeper) and probably said "niiiiiice" but then went on to sleep on the album which is a shame as there are some little gems on there.... with production coming from JMJ, Erick Sermon, MC Serch and the rest made up from Def Jef :) you gotta wonder why so many people ignored it, possibly because it was a female rapper? but as it goes this was probably the best female mc out there at the time as none of the others were dropping anything of note and Lady of Rage was pretty much on her own level! i enjoyed this album so thats what matters. ive seen it posted once or twice on other blogs but i thought i may as well throw it up there for the masses. its a pretty good album and a shame she never got to do anymore? rumour has it she kinda lied about her upbringing and was from a well off background so after that she swiftly got dropped by def jam and the rest is history....

So like i said its been a long time but im not gonna feed you all with excuses on why my lazy ass didnt post for a while im just gonna jump straight into it and deliver the goods...

Back in 1992 Yo MTV raps was blazing out classic after classic and none more so than the smooth west coast track "welcome to the ghetto" by the now legendary Spice 1.

The track was amazing and i rememeber watching the video quite a few times as the single and album seemed to be unfindable over here in the UK ? i cant quite remember where i managed to pick this up from but it sure as hell wasn't a record shop :) I think round my way there was possibly only me that had an original copy of this shit and i think because of that it kinda got slept on by all the heads in my area. I was also one of the lucky ones that had Sky tv back then so people used to pile round my house on evenings after school at 5 o clock to watch half hour of Yo and then again on saturday mornings my mums front room would get taken over by me and my friends sitting there with my finger on the pause button on the vcr :) the good old days.

I often think back and rememeber the times when i rolled in a buch of about 10 pretty hardcore hip hop heads and knew of about another 2 or 3 crews of people that we would bump into in the record shop (Jays records, Cambridge R.I.P)

I was from a small town but i can assure you the wax that was circulated around my streets was harder than any shit you saw in London or big cities lucky enough to have 100's of record shops. Back in the days, saturday mornings were left for the kill or be killed for us kids growin up with a wax and headbob obsession :) everyone would be up at the crack of dawn and on the train to cambridge at 7 o clock sharp!!! sittin outside in the cold/rain/snow waiting for the dude in the shop to open the doors. It wa always the best part of the week having your friend shout across the shop at you while holding a 12" that no one expected with just a big grin on his face coz he copped that shit first :) am pretty sure thats how all headz rolled around the world.

so anyways i give you Mr Spice 1........

He was from the Oakland area and was from what i know tied up with the too short/ant banks crews, but as an artist he kinda just seemed to be out there on his own? in truth i dont really know all that much about him apart form his music, but i guess thats all that matters.

Spice 1, I'm pretty sure is still making music but for me hip hop just remains in them golden years so if truth be told i dont really listen to much new stuff at all? i know there is some good shit out there but to be honest it doesnt do the same as it did for me back then so i dont worry myself over it.....

this album tho is pretty much a west coast must have! i copped the first 3 albums from spice 1 but for me they just didnt compare to this.

Monday, November 08, 2010

Well well well, hip hop is still alive in the blogging world :) i been away for a while now but i seem to have got my head set again so i shall start posting up shit again and start sharing my wealth. my hard drive went down not long back so have lost a fair bit of stuff but i still got my hits to drop so if anyone needs any re-ups or you got any requests??? let me know. i got a truck load of records and cd's that i ripping to my new laptop so will gladly post the goods

Monday, August 13, 2007

So N.W.A officially dead, the only memeber still friends with everyone was Ren. Dre had come out of nowhere with a track called "Deep cover" from a movie soundtrack of the same name. On that now bonafied classic track there was a skinny dude with a hat way way too big for him in the video and little did the world know what was coming next....

Now i wasn't ever gonna drop albums like this on a blog as i thought it was pointless as just about every head in the world had bobbed to this shit at some point right??? wrong?

Now picture the scene... i work with this dude (not a big hip hop fan but he knows some stuff?) I get to work quite often with him already taking over the c.d. player with chronic 2001. So last week i bring in a big stack of c.d's (the chronic and doggystyle included) and proceed to bump head to "fuck wit dre day" when i get asked "whats this????" now i see red and just laff at first but then the more i talk to his dumbass i realise how people still think death row was pure 2Pac. Now I know its not his fault for being young and fucking stupid, but seriously the longer the day went on the more stressed i got with everyone i work with! I had people trying to tell me shit about Dre, Snoop and dont even get me started on Pac.So rant over, now comes the goodies for all the youngstas out there that really didnt get to be around when the whole Death Row thing blew up. Now I have said this before and i'll say it again... i think Dj Quik was the first to start the whole G Funk shit off but to be fair Dre has that magic touch and with a crew as talented as Snoop and the whole dogg pound its not hard to understand why they ruled the world for 2 or 3 years. Gangsta rap had died a death and New York was bubbling away with classic after classic dropping on a weekly basis. So when the chronic just appeared in the shops (and that really was the case! no one knew that shit was coming) it took a little while for people to trust in another N.W.A related release which was bound to be about tits, pussy and shooting people! but history is now history. Illmatic asside...I dont think there has been a buzz like it since (possibly 50's get rich effort came close) but i'm gonna give you some joints which i think show the whole crew at there best.

I Picked the album up by surprise i think the week before christmas 92 while visiting my dad. Now my dad had no C.D player in his house so i had to wait nearly a week and a half to hear the shit! imagine that. So i finaly get my ass home and in the presence of some mates, throw the shit on and realise then and there what you listening to is just classic classic shit. But seriosly now i can remember it taking a long long time for people in the U.K to really start bumping this stuff and it wasnt untill "Nuthin but a G thang" took over MTV that people really took a shine to the album. Hip Hop connection (english version of the source at the time) absolutely panned this album!!! fools.

The single came out and as usual from dre there wasnt that much of an extra to the single.But there was a nice "Freestyle Mix" which cuts way to short as daz is in full flow the shit fades down??? anyone got a longer version of this hook me up. Also there was a "Club Mix" Which is basically nuthin but a G thang over the bitches aint shit beat? exciting hey? but it works quite well and gives the track a little harder edge to it .

Then came Let me Ride... Another pretty dull single release with no mixes then came another version? that seemed to happen a lot with this album (3 different singles of the same song ) but then there was a "Let Me Ride (extended) " version . A full 11 mins long with some alternate lyrics and beat was a tiny bit different. but well worth having if you dont have it.

Then...Dre finally releases a single thats worth its weight in bud seeds and quite possibly the essential dre 12" to own.

Now i remember hearing "Deep cover/One Eight Seven" a long time before the chronic came out but could never find the track and i dont think many did so the fact it was finaly released on this 12" was defiantely the biggest reason to own it...untill you flip it over and get blessed with the now classic studio smoking session banger that is "puffin on blunts & drankin tanqueray" Classic 12" here for any vinyl junkie alive.

That was that...The chronic and its singles were absolutely played to death for over a year and the hip hop world waited on the arrival of Snoops solo album. Now when "whats my name" dropped i was a little dissapointed to tell the truth but then the day arrived and the album dropped.

So on very first listen you have the bathtub intro????? then the actual G-funk intro where Lady of rage explodes the album up straght away and all is forgotten with the dissapointing first single. classic after classic on this album and it just picks up from where Chronic left off. I own not a single 12" from this album ? i dont know why but nevermind.

Then came a little spin off featuring the whole death row crew. The track "murder was the case" from snoops album was turned into a mini film and that paved the way for a soundtrack to be created from pretty much the entire Death Row roster. Not by any means a classic but there were some very good tracks on it and its one of those albums i not seen posted up anywhere else so i thought i would do the honours.

So to wrap it all up I think i've thrown up a little surprise. This wasnt a Death row release but it may as well have been. The man responsible for introducing Snoop to Dre, Warren G. Warren G is Dre's little step brother and had a little crew going on with Snoop and Nate Dog while Dre was in the studio producing N.W.A's last album. Of course things happened and Dre and Snoop did the deep cover thing and "G-Funk was officially born" soon after.So as not to be caught in the shadow of his older step brother Warren G released his debut album and it was very nicely named "Regulate...G Funk era"

So that concludes my little death row connections ting. I do have many many views about the similarites with Dre's effort and Above The Laws "Black Mafia Life" album but as my pc wont rip the cd its kind of hard to throw down my argument about it. hope you enjoy the tracks if you havn't heard them before.......

Chi ali has a hip hop story that is beyond belief ...."I was very upset that night. Thirty seconds, man, can change your whole life. And, you know, I'm paying for it."

Dude sure is. Chi currently serving a 14 year stretch for shooting his then girlfriends brother over some petty shit? But thats the pollitics out the way.

Whatever happened that night will never take away the pure gem of an album that a 14 year old produced!!! damn straight 14!!!

Every time i hear "maniac psycho" or "let the horns blow" i cant help but wonder just what went wrong with chi's career? I know i have a slight affection of both the beatnuts production skills and the whole native tongue clique but this really was to me a bonafied classic. I loved this album (can you tell?) but his decline happened way before the shooting incident so someone tell me what the fuck happened after this album came out. i know he popped up on dres's solo LP but thats about it?

The album came out with the first single "age aint nothin but a #" I wonder which dumb ass record label exec thought of using that track as the albums first single? i think they tried to get him as much commercial rep as they could which is a damn shame as the album was so much better than that track. So the single was only rescued by the fact "maniac psycho" was on the B side as that is the only reason to buy it!

But then came the next single...Let the horns blow/Funky Lemonade

Now this was much more like it. The "funky lemonade remix" is 5* classic shit! so well worth the download.Next up came ...Roadrunner 12"

This track is just solid sickness and shows the signs of what the now older Chi ali had to offer but sadly thats all she wrote. The only details i could find on this track was hereBut i am pretty sure it was available somewhere else but i aint flicking thorugh crates looking for something i probably wont find?

All in all though Chi Came through with his 1 and only Album and this is an absolute must to any collection if you can find it nowadays.